ISTANBUL, Nov. 30 -- Pope Benedict XVI slipped out of his red Prada loafers and padded in white slippered feet across the carpeted floor of Istanbul's revered Blue Mosque on Thursday, in only the second papal visit ever to a Muslim house of worship.

Near the end of the tour, the pope's host, Istanbul's chief cleric, Mustafa Cagrici, said quietly, "Now, I'm going to pray." The Christian world's most powerful leader lowered his eyes and appeared to mouth his own brief, silent prayer as the lights of the mosque glinted off the heavy gold cross nestled against his white frock.

For just under a minute, Benedict stood facing Mecca alongside the Islamic cleric beneath the exquisite blue-tiled dome of one of the world's most famous mosques, a visual gesture of reverence to a Muslim world he angered in September by quoting a Byzantine emperor who accused Islam of embracing violence.

"Thank you for this moment of prayer," the pope told Cagrici as they shuffled out of the cavernous 17th-century structure, known formally as Sultan Ahmet Mosque, with Benedict's white stocking slippers peeking from beneath his floor-length robes. In Islam, it is forbidden to wear shoes inside a mosque.

"This visit will help us find together the way of peace for the good of all humanity," the pope said.

"A single swallow can't bring spring," Cagrici told the pope. "But many swallows will follow, and we will enjoy a spring in this world."

Some Turks were angry that the Roman Catholic leader, on his first trip to a Muslim country in the 19 months he has been pope, entered a mosque. Police dispersed a few dozen demonstrators who protested outside the Blue Mosque several hours before Benedict's arrival.

Others welcomed the pope's gestures of goodwill. "Each message the pope gives in Turkey is important," said Ali Adakoglu, editor of Gercek Hayat, a weekly magazine popular among conservative Muslim university students. "It's important not only for Turkey, but for the world, which could have a clash of civilizations."

Adakoglu added, "But is he saying nice things only for the sake of being polite, or is he really behind his warm messages?"

Snipers stood guard in the mosque's minarets. Just before the pope arrived, the wail of the call to prayer competed with the rumble of helicopters policing the area from above, part of the stringent security precautions Turkey has taken for the pontiff's four-day trip, which ends Friday.

Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, made the first papal visit to a mosque, in Damascus in 2001. Benedict added the Blue Mosque to his itinerary as an overture to Muslims and Turkish nationalists suspicious of his visits here with leaders of Orthodox and Armenian Christian churches, who have complained of discrimination and repression in Turkey.

Benedict's tour has tested his diplomatic skills as he treads carefully across the fault lines of religious conflict both modern and ancient. He has used the trip not only to try to mend his relations with the Muslim world, but also to try to improve the Vatican's ties with the Orthodox and Armenian Christian churches, which split with Rome centuries ago.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who from his seat in Istanbul acts of spiritual head of Orthodox Christianity's 250 million members worldwide, invited the pontiff to Turkey a year ago, long before the pope's speech that incited Muslims.

After nearly a millennium of conflict between Rome and the Orthodox church, the pope and the patriarch called Thursday for a combined effort to salvage the declining membership and stature of both churches in Europe, where Christians are increasingly abandoning religion as Islam gains followers and influence.

"In Europe, while remaining open to other religions and to their cultural contributions, we must unite our efforts to preserve Christian roots, traditions and values," the leaders said in a joint statement after an elaborate, two-hour St. Andrew's Day service in the Orthodox Church of St. George near the banks of the Bosporus Strait.

And while the pope was willing to pray in the Blue Mosque, he avoided any overt show of prayer when he visited the Haghia Sophia -- once considered Christendom's grandest house of worship. In 1453, Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, now Istanbul, and turned the church into a mosque. It was declared a museum in 1935 after Turkey became a secular republic.

Press and television commentators here had speculated about whether the pope would attempt a prayer in Haghia Sophia or make a comment urging the government to return it to its status as a place of worship.

He did neither. He did, however, raise folded hands for a few seconds toward the recently refurbished ceiling mosaic of the Virgin Mary, and as he entered the soaring spaces of the onetime cathedral, his face seemed more animated than in any other public appearance of his trip.

Praying overtly in Hagia Sophia (I have no doubt he prayed silently) would have offended his hosts and ruined all the overtures for peace and goodwill he has been so careful to offer on his apostolic journey to Turkey. The resulting furor would have dominated the coverage of his trip and drowned out his message. It also would have hurt His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch, who, last I checked, isn't causing an unnecessary incident by praying overtly in Hagia Sophia either.

His visit to the Blue Mosque was a gesture of charity and respect, virtues sorely needed if we are to avoid unholy violence between Christians and Muslims.

The Patriarchate will tell you if you go to visit them and get a guide for Agia Sophia - Don't make obvious prayer there, because then we won't be invited back - it wouldn't take much for the Turks to ban all Christians or all foreigners from the place. Say your prayers silently (you know - Palamas and all!) and pray for the restoration of the world to Christ's church.

Logged

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."" Isaac Asimov

I've done a bit of research. He's Orthodox. He converted to the Antiochene Church 2 years ago.

Here's a little bio:

Joshua S. TreviÃƒÂ±o is the Vice President for Public Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Before coming to PRI, he was an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. He served in the Administration of George W. Bush as a speechwriter and International Communications Coordinator for the Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001 through 2004. He holds bachelor's degrees in history and political science from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Mr. TreviÃƒÂ±o is a veteran of the United States Army and a native of Texas. He converted to Orthodoxy in 2004, and lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife Michelle.

From what I understand, he converted from Catholicism. He's surprisingly ecumenical for such a recent convert. Whatever he is, great article.

We all realize that the press would have promptly pilloried the Pope for "offending the Moslems' sensibilities", right?

And the heathen mob might have hung him for real.

Nonetheless, he could have avoided going to the mosque at all. Orthodox Christians aren't even permitted to go inside mosques, and some faithful I know in Sofia say it's appropriate to spit while walking by the mosque regrettably still standing there. Why should the rules be different for Benedict?

ON HIS VISIT to Turkey this week, Pope Benedict XVI made amends for earlier remarks that offended many Muslims. The pope's turnabout, and the positive reaction of Muslims in Turkey, offers hope that Christians and Muslims can find ways to overcome the inevitable frictions involved in a continuous process of engagement.

In September, the pope's citation of an anti-Muslim statement by a 14th-century Byzantine emperor caused a furor throughout the Muslim world. The controversy turned what was to have been a visit of reconciliation between Catholic and Orthodox Christians into a test of Christian-Muslim relations.

Given that the trip was already scheduled, the pope's choice of statements was particularly maladroit. It reminds his Turkish hosts that, a few decades after the emperor's harsh words, the Turks conquered Constantinople, destroyed the Byzantine empire, and brought Orthodox Christianity under Muslim overlordship.

When the pope arrived in Istanbul, as Constantinople was renamed in 1930, he was careful not to give offense. He reversed his position that Turkey should not become a full member of the European Union. And when he visited Hagia Sophia, once the preeminent Orthodox basilica, then a mosque, and now a museum, he walked about as a tourist rather than kneel in prayer as Pope Paul VI did in 1967. (Some Muslims thought Paul was trying to re-Christianize the place.)

Benedict's grand gesture came Thursday at the splendid Blue Mosque. He took off his shoes, as Muslims do before entering. And then, wrote the newspaper Hurriyet, "he turned toward Mecca and prayed [standing] like Muslims." The p ope knew just the right touches to show Muslims that he honored their faith.

The pope also reminded Turks that he wanted them to treat the few Orthodox Christians remaining in their country with respect. The Orthodox patriarch, whose headquarters are in Istanbul, is circumscribed in ways that would be intolerable in any society that values religious freedom. The patriarchate, for instance, cannot own property, and the patriarch can only be chosen from Turkish citizens. Turkey will have difficulty entering the EU until it allows Orthodox Christians and members of other religious minorities the space to fully express their faiths.

The pope's visit, with its push-and-pull between deference and polite criticism, offers a model for how Christians and Muslims should deal with one another. They cannot ignore their shared history -- conquest and persecution and profound disagreements over doctrine and day-to-day religious practices. But they can find commonality in their belief in the transcendent, and the singularity of the divine. Dialogue and respect will do much to soothe the tensions inherent in contact between two great religious traditions.

Logged

But for I am a man not textueel I wol noght telle of textes neuer a deel. (Chaucer, The Manciple's Tale, 1.131)

Benedict's grand gesture came Thursday at the splendid Blue Mosque. He took off his shoes, as Muslims do before entering. And then, wrote the newspaper Hurriyet, "he turned toward Mecca and prayed [standing] like Muslims." The p ope knew just the right touches to show Muslims that he honored their faith.

So here's one of the looming questions. What was he praying? At first glance it sounds as, though, he was worshiping in a Muslim service. However, after second thought it could also be concluded that he was praying as a Christian in a Muslim posture. Jerusalim isn't that far away from Mecca? Nevertheless, it's interesting and I wonder what the real case was?

Logged

"If you give the average Frenchman a choice between a reforming president who would plug the country's huge deficit and a good cheese, he would probably opt for the cheese." - Stephen ClarkeI think the French may be on to something here.

We can only hope that his simple display of Christian humility might shame some of the Muhammedan into questioning their faith.

Or at least to see Christians less as an enemy and to desire more fervently peace with us.

If Benedict is going to engage in the frank dialogue with them that he believes me must do, he has to show his good faith and respect. Perhaps some people, surprised by Benedict's graciousness, will go back to the Regensburg speech, read it, and discover what he really was saying.

Remember, to the outside world, Benedict pretty much speaks for all Christians. That's a big responsibility.

So here's one of the looming questions. What was he praying? At first glance it sounds as, though, he was worshiping in a Muslim service. However, after second thought it could also be concluded that he was praying as a Christian in a Muslim posture. Jerusalim isn't that far away from Mecca? Nevertheless, it's interesting and I wonder what the real case was?

Well, I think the Mecca deal isn't that important. The Mufti was praying in Mecca's direction as he is bound to do. It would be bizarre for the Pope, being next to him, to turn his back to him and pray in a different direction. I can imagine the media reaction afterwards.

Though you are right about Jerusalem. I just consulted a map, and it is almost exactly in the same direction from Istanbul as Mecca.

We all realize that the press would have promptly pilloried the Pope for "offending the Moslems' sensibilities", right?

And the heathen mob might have hung him for real.

I guess these are the reactions of the "heathen mob". We really MUSt remember that they may not be of our Faith but they are human beings with dignity given to them by God and not a faceless mass or mob.

The remarks from ordinary Turks on the street were a far cry from what the response would have been from people on the street of a secular American city, say like Seattle, who had to deal with such a visit.